Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Important Story Hardly Reported -- Argentine President Demands Iran Hand Over Suspects

UPDATING BELOW

Fairly often, important news stories get little attention from the major international "news" networks. One such is the call of Nestor Kirchner, President of Argentina, for Iran to hand over terrorism suspects to the Argentine investigating judges. Kirchner made his appeal on the same day --Tuesday, 25 September 2007-- that Ahmadinejad spoke at the same venue, the UN General Assembly in New York. Among the suspects for whom an Argentine judge has issued an international arrest warrant is former Iranian president Rafsanjani, considered a "moderate" once upon a time.

Iran has done nothing to clarify

the attacks on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish cultural society in the same city in 1994, which together murdered more than a hundred people. Kirchner also asked the INTERPOL to intercede in capturing the eight suspects [according to La Nacion, Buenos Aires].

We are making an appeal here for the General Assembly to ratify these measures and we hope that Iran, on the basis of international law, will accept and respect the jurisdiction of Argentine justice and will cooperate with the Argentine judges to bring them to justice.

An Argentine judge issued the warrants for the Iranians and one Lebanese, probably a Hizbullah operative, in November of 2006. Since then, Iran has not complied with these warrants. Kirchner pointed out that Iran

has not facilitated the full cooperation requested by Argentine justice.We request that the secretary-general [of the UN, Ban Ki Moon] and all the nations of the world intercede with the Islamic Republic of Iran so that they take the relevant steps.

He added that the commitment of the Argentine government had to do with

respect for the memory of the victims . . . [and] the hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran will apply international law and cooperate so that the truth can be known, nothing more and nothing less.

Fat chance of Iran cooperating but I share Kirchner's hope. Now, the highly significant question is why his speech was generally overlooked in English speaking countries. I did see a report of it on France24 in English. But France of course is not an English-speaking country. And France24 seems to have let the matter drop.

What did Kirchner's speech mean? First, he showed that Iran's barbarism is not theoretical or speculative. It involves concrete mass murerous acts in the past -- and outside the Middle East. Somehow, if an Arab or Islamic atrocity takes place in the Middle East, many people excuse it or minimize its significance. Either That's-how-those-people-are or The-victim-deserved-it or the perpetrators had-right-and-reason-on-their-side. These acts of terrorist slaughter took place in Buenos Aires, a city of old Western cultural traditions and a civilized life style, sorely tried to be sure by the increased poverty of recent decades and military juntas, etc. Secondly, the speech showed a Latin American country complaining about Iran, not a European state. Latin America is often considered "third world" [whatever that means] and it simply would not do, it seems, to show Americans that a "third world" country is also against Iran and Ahmadinejad. Thirdly, the speech emphasized Iran's violation of international law under the mullahs' regime, whereas the usual fake "human rights" and "peace" outfits [& NGOs] are often reported to be denouncing Israel for violations of international law [as if these "NGOs" really cared about international law]. Hence, it probably simply will not do to show that Judeophobic Iran violates international law.

The big question still remaining --we repeat-- is why the speech of the Argentine president before the UN General Assembly, openly connecting Iran with crimes of mass murder outside the Middle East, has gotten so little world attention.

The BBC may have had another reason not to report Kirchner's speech. He also brought up Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands [called "las Malvinas" in Spanish]. Reports on the speech appeared in El Universal [Mexico], Clarin [Argentina], La Nacion[Argentina], etc. The fact that Kirchner's speech has gotten so little attention relative to its importance demonstrates once again that when examining the bias and propaganda character of the press and media, one must ask not only how the publication or broadcaster is lying or distorting a news story, but what stories may be left out altogether without the reader or listener or viewer being aware of the deliberate omission.- - - -UPDATINGBloomberg did cover the speech but Bloomberg is not part of the MSM. Although respectable, it focusses on business and economics, and therefore is not mainstream. It works for a different audience. See reports in Buenos Aires Herald [in English], Wiesenthal Center site, IRN news, the BBC in Spanish (and aqui) [but not in English, because they obviously don't want the English-speaking world to know about Kirchner's charges against Iran. However, the Spanish-speaking world already knows the story --if well informed-- from other Spanish-language media. Therefore, it can't be hidden from them anyway; avoiding the story on BBC-Spanish would only make BBC-Spanish lose credibility among its target audience].- - - - - - -Coming: A Jewish artifact in the hands of the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, a British journalopropagandist loves walt-mearsheimer, Jews in Hebron, Jerusalem, the Land of Israel, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

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